A Girl Of the LimberlostIt might make me lose my reading challenge to do this, but I'm giving up on this one. It is so dreadfully awful! What can you do with a book that starts off the first chapter using the following declaratives, in order:
demanded
faltered
cried
jeered
replied
said (Finally!)
In later conversation we find: panted, begged, inquired, sobbed, and suggested.... But you're used to them and hardly notice them...most of the time.
People who loved it as children will hate me for this, but to be honest, I can't imagine liking this book at any age. There are certain books I count as childhood favorites that I might consider outdated for the modern audience. The Pink Maple House, Little Men, The Five Little Peppers, The Horse Without a Head--I loved them to death but I wouldn't force them on a modern-day child. (I might offer them, nonchalantly.) But those books have plot, charm, and a writing style that doesn't grate on the nerves. They're real novels about real people, not made-up crap about impossibly saintly people or unbelievably cruel people who have a mystical conversion and become impossibly saintly. They're books that if I read them for the first time now, I'd at least be able to finish them.
A Girl Of the Limberlost--abandoned.
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